July 2, 2021 (MLN): There is an urgency of increasing supplies of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for developing countries to arrest the rising human toll due to the pandemic, and to halt further divergence in the economic recovery between advanced economies and the rest, the heads of the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization said June 30, 2021.

They had convened for the first meeting of the Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccines, Therapeutics and Diagnostics for Developing Countries.

According to the joint statement: “As many countries are struggling with new variants and the third wave of COVID-19 infections, accelerating access to vaccines becomes even more critical to ending the pandemic everywhere and achieving broad-based growth. We are deeply concerned about the limited vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and support for deliveries available to developing countries. Urgent action is needed now to arrest the rising human toll due to the pandemic, and to halt further divergence in the economic recovery between advanced economies and the rest.”

They have formed a Task Force, as a “war room” to help track, coordinate and advance the delivery of COVID-19 health tools to developing countries and to mobilize relevant stakeholders and national leaders to remove critical roadblocks.

In a first meeting, the heads also looked at practical and effective ways to track, coordinate and advance the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries.

“As an urgent first step, we are calling on G20 countries to (1) embrace the target of at least 40 percent in every country by end-2021, and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022, (2) share more vaccine doses now, including by ensuring at least  1 billion doses are shared with developing countries in 2021 starting immediately, (3) provide financing, including grants and concessional financing, to close the residual gaps, including for the ACT-Accelerator, and (4) remove all barriers to the export of inputs and finished vaccines, and other barriers to supply chain operations,” the joint statement said.

In addition, to enhance transparency they agreed to compile data on dose requests (by type and quantity), contracts, deliveries (including through donations), and deployments of COVID-19 vaccines to low and middle-income countries—and make it available as part of a shared country-level dashboard, it added.

They also agreed to take steps to address hesitancy and to coordinate efforts to address gaps in readiness in a meeting, so countries are positioned to receive, deploy and administer vaccines.

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